


when you get what you want

by belikebumblebee



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:23:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belikebumblebee/pseuds/belikebumblebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma tells you over the phone, quietly, after not getting out a word for a full minute in which you can hear her swallow, and swallow, and swallow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when you get what you want

And then, right when you feel safe and warm, and bright enough to let go of a tiny bit of your anger like a floe breaking away from the melting ice cover, it happens.  
  
Snow dies.   
  
You have nothing to do with it, in fact, you didn’t even want it to happen because you were (are) finally embracing the possibility that something other than vengeance could (and does) make you happy.   
  
Snow just dies.   
  
The irony isn’t lost on you. Right when her death would do your situation more harm than good, right when you stop trying to end her life and destroy her happiness, she chokes on her stupid Happy Ending all by herself.   
  
Maternal Death. Half an hour after giving birth to a baby boy.   
  
Emma tells you over the phone, quietly, after not getting out a word for a full minute in which you can hear her swallow, and swallow, and swallow. You look over to Henry as she speaks. He is playing with his phone at the living room table, waiting to meet his brand new uncle, and something inside of you feels like a stone sinking through water.  
  
“Emma”, you begin and you have no idea how that sentence is supposed to continue, but she interrupts you.   
  
“You have to tell Henry. He can’t come here, he shouldn’t” - her voice sways for a moment, like a tall tree in the wind - “shouldn’t see this. I’ll come as soon as I can and talk to him about it, I know you and her- that you probably don’t want to-”  
  
You close your eyes. “Stop. I will talk to him.”  
  
Without another word, Emma hangs up. She hasn’t done that in months.   
  
Your hand holding the phone sinks down. You turn around.   
  
“Henry”, you call softly. He looks up and drops his phone on the table immediately.  
  
“Are we going?”, he asks excitedly and rises from his chair, but stills when he sees your face. You cross the distance quickly, and he sits back down.   
  
“Mom, what’s wrong?”  
  
You take a deep breath and his hands in your own, crouch down on the floor before him so you can look him directly in the eyes.  
  
Then you tell him.   
  
He blanches more with every word you say, until ultimately, all the color seems to have left his face. You talk and talk, mainly so he has something to hold on to, you say things like _it is rare, but it happens_ and _the baby lives, it’s a healthy little boy_ and _I’m sorry_. There are tears on his face and it scares you _out of your mind_ , but he slips off the couch and into your arms, and you hold him tightly.   
(You feel sick, sick, _sick_ at the thought of your son crying over Snow White, but you are his mother and for him you can take it. For him, you can take anything.)  
  
“How is Emma?”, he finally asks in a rough voice when he pulls away, and once again you realize that he’s not a little boy anymore; he’s thirteen years old and his feet are size nine and a half now.

  
***  
You take him to see the baby the next day, and he holds his infant uncle in his thin arms, awkwardly but carefully. “Hello”, Henry greets friendly and looks curiously in his face.   
  
David smiles at that, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.   
  
“I named him Nevin. It means ‘new beginning’, and...” He clears his throat and looks away. “...it’s close to ‘Nevis’, which means ‘snow’.”  
  
 _Of course_ he did.   
 You leave the two of them to it and go downstairs.  
  
Emma is sitting at the counter, pale and her forehead propped up on one hand. She is surrounded by paper work. The corners of her mouth don’t curl upwards the slightest bit when you sit down opposite her.   
  
“He wants her cremated and her ashes scattered over the ocean”, Emma informs you in a low voice, her eyebrows raised disapprovingly.  
  
“Cremation was very common in the Enchanted Forest.”, you offer, thinking that she would rather have a place to go to, a place to mourn. Like you.  
  
But Emma just frowns and replies bitingly: “Well, it’s fucking difficult to organize in a place that doesn’t have a crematory.”  
  
You say nothing.

  
***  
 _Emma punches Hook in the face for you, two days after you get back from Neverland._  
 _He comments on your new haircut in his usual uncouth manner, you don’t even feel all that offended because well, what is to be expected about a pirate’s manners? But Emma just turns around and punches him. In the nose. He staggers back and curses._  
  
 _“What the hell, woman?!”, he spits._  
 _  
She just shrugs. “Keep it in your pants, mate.”_  
 _  
You think that maybe she is jealous of_ you.

  
***  
You call her.   
“Are you going to sleep here tonight? Henry asked”, you add. You both know it’s a lie. Henry is old enough to do his own asking these days. You’re supposed to be old enough as well, but you don’t feel safe asking for her when her mouth is a thin line and there’s no feeling in her eyes at all.   
  
“David needs my help with the baby”, Emma answers in a flat voice. “I’ll stay at the apartment.”  
  
“Of course”, you say and think that she has that tone. That _I want to run away_ tone.   
  
Emma breathes for a long moment and then says: “I’ll take her across the town line tomorrow, to find a crematory in Boston.”  
  
“Of course”, you say again, only faintly surprised that Snow can’t even snuff it without ruining your life. What did you expect?

  
***  
 Henry has surprisingly few questions about death and surprisingly many questions about babies. You call Dr. Hopper and ask if this is a coping mechanism, or if it means that you damaged him somehow (because are children supposed to know more about death than life?). But he is no use at all, just keeps acting like this is about you somehow (when he has the _nerve_ to suggest that ‘in your own way’, you’re grieving over _Snow White_ , you’re disgusted enough to hang up on him and take a shower).   
And so you just answer Henry. Tell him why babies clench their tiny fingers around everything they get a hold of, why they scream so much and why they keep dropping things to the floor no matter how many times you hand them back to them.  
   
Emma crosses the town line without dropping by first, and when she texts you a picture of an urn saying _pls ask henry what he thinks of this_ you exhale and exhale and exhale.

  
***  
She does come back, bringing her mother’s ashes in an urn and a speeding ticket that she is never going to pay for with her. She calls in the evening.  
  
“Emma, _how are you_?”  
  
“Fine. How’s the kid holding up?”   
  
You don’t ask again and she is sleeping at the apartment.  
  
The call lasts three minutes and four seconds.

  
***  
“Mom?”  
  
“I’m here.”  
  
“Good.”

  
***  
 _You realize you are in love with Emma a month or so after you get back from Neverland. The bell rings and your heart flutters like a small bird testing its wings. When you open the door and it is not her, it quiets with disappointment. As simple as that._  
  
 _It is odd, really, how quietly you accept the fact that you have fallen for her, of all people. But what else is there to do?_

  
***  
You polish Henry’s best shoes, because Snow White or not, this is a public event and you will be damned if your son shows up looking like a peasant. He is wearing his suit for the last time because he is about to grow out of it. You make a mental note to measure him again so you can have a new one tailored and ready.   
  
Right before the ceremony, you squeeze his hand and kiss the top of his head; he openly hugs you hard, not caring who sees that the former mayor and Evil Queen has shown up for Snow White’s memorial celebration.   
  
If you hadn’t, you’d have been the only one. The entirety of Storybrooke has come together at the harbor, sits down on a mass of cheap white plastic chairs and slowly, slowly, the whispering and talking quiets down. The eerie silence that follows is only broken by the howling wind and the cries of David’s son.   
  
You sit right behind Henry, who is seated next to Emma and David; and where ever you thought you’d be when Snow White finally pegged out, you didn’t think it’d be the second row of her commemoration.  
  
“Thank you all for coming”, Emma’s voice comes out of the four ambulant speakers, and you can hear how empty it sounds. You seek her gaze, but she’s looking down like the wind is drying out her eyes. Her knuckles are white, she is clasping the microphone.   
  
“I hope you’re all wearing scarves or hats or something, as I’m sure my mother would have worried about that for each and every one of you.”  
  
It’s meant to be a fondly-remembering joke, and everyone snivels and chuckles a little, but all you can think of is how in the very first weeks of your marriage, when you still cared about Snow, you knitted her a scarf and she lost it playing in the woods.   
You shake your head a little and ban the memory from your mind. Henry turns around to look at you and you give him an encouraging smile, squeezing his shoulder.   
  
As David begins speaking in a clear, yet shaky voice, you let your gaze trail over the horizon. The sea lies still and blue as the skies, the air is icy and cold.  A beautiful early spring day. (You look over at Henry to see how he is doing, only to notice that around his neck lies the scarf you gave him for his eighth birthday, red and blue).   
  
Ruby speaks, too, and makes it three steps away from the microphone before breaking down crying. Your hand twitches.   
  
One of Snow’s pupils comes up and she’s too nervous about the public speaking, hesitates twice. The crowd is moved.   
  
Then Emma takes the baby from her father’s arms (it looks unnatural, somehow), and David gets on Hook’s ship with his wife’s urn.   
  
The crowd waves and cries and pays their respects as the Jolly Roger leaves the harbor.   
  
You look over to Emma. She’s wearing a black turtle neck and no scarf and she is facing away from the ship.

  
***  
Henry turns to you, afterwards, and murmurs: “I want to stay and help collect all the chairs”, he lowers his voice a bit more and looks up at you like he did when he was five, “I’d like to keep an eye on Emma.”  
  
Again you wonder if it’s a coping mechanism, this looking out for others, or if Henry simply isn’t all that heartbroken over his grandmother’s death.   
(If you raised him to be that good.)  
  
“Of course, dear”, you answer, “would you like me to stay as well?”   
  
He hesitates and you smooth down his hair, he stops you by taking your hands. “Can you pick me up when I text you?”  
  
“Of course”, you say again, trying your best not to think about borders and ships and cars and the way Emma won’t look at you.

  
***  
 _She seeks your presence and you find it impossible to deny her. And so she stays for dinner, shows up early to pick up Henry, and when your heater leaks, you let her fix it._  
  
 _After that, the head lamp on your porch flickers (she comes with a ladder and a screw driver), your faucet breaks (she lies down underneath it like a car mechanic) and one of trees next to your property is leaning dangerously towards your roof (if the sight of Emma Swan jump-starting a chain saw - one not directed at your apple tree - isn’t worth it, you don’t know what is)._

  
***  
Henry doesn’t text, but you hear his key in the door three and a half hours later.   
  
“I wanted to take walk”, he says when you ask whether Emma dropped him off. His eyelashes stick together, but other than that, there is no sign of grief on his face.   
You take his coat and hold open your arms, he hugs you quickly and runs upstairs.   
  
It’s silent in the foyer.   
  
You hang up his coat.

  
***  
“Mom?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Are you glad that Snow is dead?”  
  
You inhale icicles and razor blades because you can taste the accusations already.  
  
“I mean, relieved. Not _glad_ glad. I just mean...”  
  
“No, Henry”, you interrupt him. “I’m not glad.”  
  
“Me neither.” That’s the closest he comes to telling you that he is sad.  You think your head (or your heart) might explode from feeling for Henry and Emma and feeling for yourself at the same time. 

  
***  
 _Eight moths before._ You _kiss_ her _, that first time.  You’re working in your front garden, your fingers are buried deep in the cool soil and your soul feels oddly centered._  
 _Emma is out for a run and stops to bicker with you, like you do. Her hair is messy and her cheeks are glowing. She is out of breath._  
 _You cut her off mid-insult. You take her face in both of your dirty hands and you kiss her over your white picket fence, she inhales so sharply you can feel it. She tastes like salt and summer evenings, and her hands - you do not quite expect her hands on your elbows, ribs, lower back - are endlessly gentle when she pulls you a little closer._  
  
 _Because of the fence, the kiss ends a bit awkwardly, but she smiles the world at you,_ smiles smiles smiles _, and jogs away with sparks in her eyes._  
  
 _Snow talks sternly to you when Emma tells her, but you don’t listen because all you can think of is that she didn’t find out, Emma_ told _her._

  
***  
Your bed is cold in the mornings and you hate that you notice before you even wake up.  
  
No, you’re not glad. You’re bitter.

  
***  
“Mom?”  
  
“Yes, Henry?”  
  
“Do you think Nevin knows that he doesn’t have a mom anymore?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“I think he needs one.”  
  
You almost don’t dare ask. “Did you feel like you needed a father when it was just you and me?”  
He is silent for a long time.  
  
“No”, he finally decides. “But I thought you needed someone. Something? Someone.”  
  
“I had you.”  
  
“Other than me.”  
  
***  
 _Six months before. Emma makes you breakfast, that first morning. Henry is at Neal’s house, and for the very first time, you don’t mind that as much. Because Emma is making scrambled eggs with freshly cut chives from your garden, and she is wearing your blouse over her naked skin._  
 _  
She smiles at you through the steam when she hands you your plate._  
 _Smiles smiles smiles._

  
***  
“Mom?”  
  
“Yes?”

“Why does Emma know how to change diapers so well? I mean, she never changed my diapers.”  
  
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”, you ask gently. He shrugs.  
  
“It doesn’t feel like a question I could ask her at the moment.”  
You feel warm because that means that he can ask you.  
  
“She has lived in a lot of different families, Henry. I assume she changed diapers of little foster siblings every once in a while.”  
  
“That makes sense. I never had siblings.”  
  
It’s a question and you know it, but you have far too many answers, so you say:   
  
“Neither did I.”

  
***  
 _You feel so much, but your heart shies away from words sometimes. So you find other ways to let her know - put a lunch box in her bag when she’s not looking, give her red jacket the leather care it so desperately needs, cool a can of beer for her in your fridge._  
 _Amazingly, she seems to understand, because she values everything you give her in a way that feels like enough._

  
***  
You don’t see Emma for four days after the ceremony. She calls thrice, but always only asks to speak to Henry. When her name flashes on your phone the night of the fourth day, he is fast asleep already.   
  
“Mills.”  
  
“Hey - Regina - ehm -” It’s not Emma’s voice.  
  
“Who is this?”  
  
“Ruby. Sorry - could you maybe-”  
  
There’s rustling in the background, and Ruby says “no” to someone in a sharp tone. Then she’s back on the line. “Could you come to the diner, she -”  
A crash and the sound of glass splintering. Ruby curses. “Regina, please-”  
  
More noise. “I gotta go. Please just come and help her-”  
  
She hangs up.   
  
You stare at the phone. 

  
***  
 _“Regina?”_  
  
 _“Yes?”_  
 _  
“... Nothing.” Smiles smiles smiles._

  
***  
You park your Benz right behind the Bug. The sign at Granny’s door says ‘CLOSED’, but you go in anyway - Granny hurries towards you from behind the counter. There is worry and annoyance and a little bit of fear edged on her face.   
  
“Where is she?”, you ask, but you don’t need the answer because there is a loud thud coming from the kitchen.

  
***  
The air reeks of alcohol, sweat and violence. Emma’s chest is heaving, her hair is dull and flat and the kitchen is an even bigger mess than she is. Belle and Ruby are keeping a relatively safe distance, the former is crying with her hand pressed to her mouth and the latter tries to calm Emma with an unstable voice. “Emma, just talk to me, okay? Please-”  
  
“I - _can’t_ -”   
  
She is running both hands through her hair and tearing at it, drawing in a ragged breath.  
It’s like there is a storm inside her and she can’t get it _out_ ; she’s been bottling up her emotions and the molotov cocktail it created went off in a brutal explosion.   
  
Emma is raging and shaking and she rips out a drawer with so much force that all its contents come flying out of it - it doesn’t seem to be enough, so she slams it shut and rips it open again and again.   
  
“Fucking _crap_ -”  
  
You break out of your trance and stride towards her - “No - no _no_ ”, she cries -, her fists already flying towards you, but you catch both of her wrists. You call her name; once, twice. She tries to break away, violently tugging and jerking her arms, but you don’t let go.   
  
“It’s all right.”, you tell her, and it’s like you opened a valve. “It’s all right.”  
  
Emma’s entire body goes limp and she folds. You catch her, hold her upright. “It’s all right”, you say again, and again, and again. She is still shivering and sobbing tearlessly (the sound reminds you of so many nights as the Queen Of Nothing).  
  
"She asked for you", Ruby says, looking helplessly over to you. Belle is still crying into her shoulder, and Granny just stares at her kitchen.  
  
“I’ll pay for it”, you say like it’s just a coke and a hamburger, “Don’t worry.”

  
***  
You get her home, somehow. You stop twice; once so she can stumble out of your car and be sick in the gully, and once at the hospital to have her hands x-rayed. The nurse has to pick eleven glass splinters out of them, but nothing is broken.   
You pray for Henry to still be asleep all the way to Mifflin. (He is.)

  
***  
 _Seven months before. “My parents are having another kid”, she tells you. You hand her a glass of red wine and watch as her lips close around the rim of it when she takes a sip._  
 _“I don’t know what to think of that.”, she admits._  
 _"Perfectly understandable", you say and sink down on the couch, "I expect few people would know what to do with a sibling almost thirty years younger."_  
 _"Or a mother the same age as you", she adds thoughtfully and holds her glass like a grail in her hands that know work. She almost never speaks that way of her father._

  
***   
She does not say a word and her mouth is a straight line. (But she asked for you.)  

You lead her trough the front garden where you kissed for the first time, open the door with your left because you are always keeping contact with your right. You lead her through the foyer, where she slid a firm thigh between yours that evening when she said goodbye and you sort of ended up making out for half an hour.  Emma follows you up the stairs and into the bathroom, you sit her down on the rim of the bathtub.  

"Show me your hands, please", you say softly, and she holds out her palms for you.   
Eleven splinter holes and four cuts, it must sting because the nurse disinfected them. Your knees sink into the soft bathroom rug, you support her hands with your own. The deepest cut begins right beneath the lowest joint in her right thumb and curves into the middle of her palm.    
You promised Henry: no magic. But you also promised him to protect Emma if necessary.

And so you take away the pain with a swipe of your hand, but you don't heal her. She can see her wounds in the morning.  

You take off her boots, free her white, delicate feet and set them down on the floor as carefully as you can.  She watches you, her mouth a thin line, and you wonder if she wants you to be Snow White. The thought comes like a slap with a shovel, but your hands are steady when you unwrap her out of her jacket. You put it on a hanger, and you offer her your hands.

"Stand up." She is swaying on her feet, but she gets up.

 "Raise your arms, please." Your voice is quiet and she obeys. You take off her shirt, careful not to touch her skin. Like there could be anything sexual about it when you pop the button of her jeans, unzip the fly and help her strip out of her pants and underwear.

"Turn around", you order and unclasp her bra when she does.  She's naked now, and you turn on the shower; test the temperature with your wrist like you did with Henry's baby bottles.

 "Step in", you tell her. She does.

  
***   
 You hold out a towel and she more or less falls into it (into you). You fold your arms with the towel around her. She looks so much younger with wet hair.  For a moment you just hold her, and a wet stain blossoming over your blouse where she leans into it _leans into it leansintoit_...   
"Emma", you whisper to her. "Oh, Emma."  She tips her head back and presses her eyes shut -   

  
***  
 _You have a lot of favorite things about Emma, and one of them is her grace. Emma is entirely butterfingered and clumsy in every other aspect of her life, but sex.  
In bed, there is elegance in her everything; in the way she arches her back and her fingers that entwine around your bedpost as she dissipates beneath you.  In the way she inhales and her rip cage expands, in her bare breasts and hip bones. When she comes undone, her eyelids flutter and you can see tiny muscle moving the fine skin to pinch them shut, her lashes are so light it makes your head spin.  
  
_

  ***  
 - hot tears fall, and finally, finally, Emma speaks.  

"I smashed Gran's kitchen."  

"That you did", you reply, equanimous.  Her eyes are still closed and there are still tears. "I'm drunk", she chokes out and you worry about your rug for a second, but all that comes out of her mouth is a sob.

 "Yes, you are."  

"And”, you watch her bite the inside of her cheek too hard, ”my mother is dead."  

"She is", you say, and think: _so is mine._

When she opens her eyes, they are dark and glistening like wet stone and you’re still holding the towel around her like it it’s the only thing keeping her together. 

"But I wasn't... done", Emma raises her shoulders helplessly and you start toweling her off. 

“ _You_ weren’t done?”

She is silent for a little too long. “I wasn’t a daughter.”

"Of course you were her daughter."  

"But daughters. I would never have let her-  daughters- but mothers... a daughter would’ve been _more_."  You say nothing. You think that nothing was ever enough for Snow.   
(You think that Emma is plenty.) 

"A daughter wouldn't have liked her curse self better than her real one."  You touch the back of her knee and dry her shins. 

"I should have... I didn't know I could lose something I didn't even have, no one told me that... this could happen."  Her voice is thick and throaty, you stand up and go to the closet. Get out the black tracksuit you bought and never wore.

 "I wasn't a daughter", Emma says again, like she can’t believe she screwed that up, too.  You hold open the pants for her and she climbs inside, supporting herself with her wrists on your shoulders. For a second you think about all the ways you could kill her right now, because that is how you used to measure vulnerability. 

"How would you know?"  

"What?"  You look her in the eye.

"How would you know what makes a daughter? You've been an orphan for most of your life."  You wrap her in the jacket.  She says nothing.  
You find her a pair of warm socks.    
  


***    
 _Four months before._  
  
 _"Mom?"_

_"Henry?"_

_"Is there something you want to tell me?"_

_You look up, confused. "Excuse me?"_

_"Is there something you aren't telling me?"  Something like panic throbs in your throat, so you try out an ancient parent technique._

_"What do you think? Are there things_ you _aren’t telling me?"_

_"_ Mom. _" He has gotten quite good at picking up these kinds of things. Emma always says that his bullshit-o-meter is very sensible.  "_

_Yes, there are."_

_"Mhm. Anything to do with Emma?"_

_"... Yes."_

_"You're... together, aren't you."  "_

_Did she tell you that?!"_

_"Mom."_

_"What? What is it?"_

_"You're wearing her shirt under your blazer."_

_"I am absolutely not - oh. ..."  
  
_

***   
You bring her to your bedroom and tell her to lie down.   
Without turning the lights on in the hallway, you quickly cast a glance in Henry’s bedroom because you have to: he is there, whole and safe and fast asleep (you exhale and exhale and exhale).  Then you descend down the stairs in the kitchen, to get water and something to eat.   
  
  
***  
 _“Emma?”_  
 _“Yeah.”_  
 _“Nothing.”_  
  
***  
“Regina?”  
  
Her voice is small and she looks so lost in the doorway.   
  
“I’m here”, you assure her, “why aren’t you in bed?”  
  
She raises her shoulders and just looks at your hands, watches them cut a bagel in two. You let her look and butter both halves, sprinkling a little extra salt on them (minerals, Emma needs minerals).   
  
“Come”, you say, leading the way with a glass carafe of still water in one hand and a plate with the bagel in the other. She follows you into the living room, you both sink down on the couch.  
  
“I’m sorry I’m such a jerk”, she croaks and she doesn’t look at you expectantly (doesn’t demand your forgiveness).  Which is why you are free to give it to her, along with her bagel.  
  
“Why did you ask Ruby to call me?”, you ask after a short while in which Emma chews and sniffs on occasion. “You didn’t know I was going to come.”  
There is no answer. Emma just chews and swallows and drinks two glasses of water.

  
***  
 _Sometimes she gets up even earlier than you do._  
 _On the morning of Snow’s delivery, she kisses you before she leaves and murmurs “Love you. See you later” against your lips._  
 _You are too perplexed to say anything._

  
***  
She doesn’t still doesn’t quite look you in the eye.  
“You were the _only one_ I knew who would come.”

  
***  
You hate that Snow White’s death is a tragedy in your home and you hate that she hurt the people you love by _fucking dying_. And you don’t exactly count it as vengeance when she just managed to die during childbirth, but a small, small part of you winds down.   
Snow has always had everything, gotten everything, kept everything while you were left alone and dark and scared and empty-handed.   
She took everything from you, spent it and then told everyone you stole it from her.  
Whatever misfortune befell her, your fate was always worse.  
(There is so much that is worse than death.)  
  
But Emma is asleep in your lap and whimpers every time you try to get up (her hair has dried between your fingers combing through it). Around four in the morning, Henry comes padding down the stairs and quietly climbs onto the sofa like it is the most natural thing for him to do. He curls up against your free side without a word, puts your arm around himself like a blanket and falls asleep again.   
  
And you feel so much. You _do_ have everything.


End file.
